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Abstract:

Systems and methods for providing a consumption network are provided. A
method according to the invention may include receiving purchase
information on a mobile device and recording the purchasing information.
The information may be transmitted to a central database. At the central
database, the information may be recorded and transmitted from the
central database to a pre-determined group of users. Alternatively, the
information may be transmitted to a group of users directly from the
mobile phone associated with the purchasing.

Claims:

1. A communications network comprising:a plurality of mobile phones, each
of said mobile phones enabled to receive and record purchasing decisions;
anda central database for receiving information from the plurality of
mobile phones corresponding to the purchasing decisions and for
distributing at least a portion of the information to a portion of the
plurality of mobile phones.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the central database transmits purchasing
decisions to a pre-determined group of users.

3. The system of claim 1 wherein at least one of the mobile phones
transmits purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein the central database transmits purchasing
decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by the
pre-determined group of users.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the central database transmits purchasing
decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by the owner of
the mobile device.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein the central database is distributed over
a plurality of locations.

7. One or more computer-readable media storing computer-executable
instructions which, when executed by a processor on a computer system,
perform a method for providing a consumer consumption network, the method
comprising:receiving purchase information on a mobile device;recording
the purchasing information;transmitting purchasing information to a
central database;recording the purchasing information at the central
database; andtransmitting purchasing information from the central
database to a pre-determined group of users.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising configuring at least one of
the mobile phones to transmit purchasing decisions directly to a
pre-determined group of users.

9. The method of claim 7 wherein the central database transmits purchasing
decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by the owner of
the mobile device.

10. The method of claim 7, wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by
the pre-determined group of users.

11. A communications network comprising:a central database for
coordinating communication between a plurality of mobile phones, each of
the mobile phones enabled to receive and record purchasing information,
the central database configured to receive and store purchasing
information from each of the plurality of mobile phones, the central
database further configured to transmit selected purchasing decision
information from each mobile phone to other mobile phones.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users.

13. The system of claim 11 wherein at least one of the mobile phones
transmits purchasing decisions directly to a pre-determined group of
users.

14. The system of claim 11 wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined user upon request by the
pre-determined user.

15. The system of claim 11 wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by
the owner of the mobile device.

16. One or more computer-readable media storing computer-executable
instructions which, when executed by a processor on a computer system,
perform a method for providing a consumer consumption network, the method
comprising:using a mobile device to purchase an item or a
service;transmitting to a central database purchasing information
regarding the purchase of the item or service;recording the purchasing
information at the central database; andtransmitting the purchasing
information from the central database to a pre-determined group of users.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising configuring at least one of
the mobile phones to transmit purchasing decisions directly to a
pre-determined group of users.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by
the owner of the mobile device.

19. The method of claim 16 wherein the central database transmits
purchasing decisions to a pre-determined group of users upon request by
the pre-determined group of users.

20. The method of claim 16 further comprising distributing information
from the central database to a plurality of databases.

[0003]Communities of consumers may share similar interests. The
relationships between the consumers may affect the consumption behavior
in the transactions these make. It would be desirable to provide systems
and methods with which a consumption network can be implemented such that
consumers that share similar interests can take advantage of the
consumption behavior of other consumers sharing similar interests.
Specifically, it would be desirable if consumers could leverage on their
friend's purchase information and other consumers' purchases so that they
may make smarter purchase decisions.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0004]It is an object of this invention to provide systems and methods for
providing a consumption network. In such systems and methods, consumers
can be networked, preferably in real time, with substantially ubiquitous
wireless mobile devices. Each of the wireless mobile devices typically
includes a high bandwidth network connection. In view of the use of
wireless mobile devices by a system according to the invention, the
system may be considered, at least in part, a mobile network.

[0005]Such a connected consumption environment according to the invention
allows consumers to be able to sense the general market, or a market for
a specific item, with the help of other consumers. Knowledge of the
markets can help consumers make more informed financial decisions.

[0006]One embodiment of the invention can be a mobile device-based system
that allows one to log in either manually or automatically and share
one's transactions while allowing others to access this aggregated data
when interested in making specific financial decisions--e.g., buying a
product or researching a service. The system may also provide a platform
that allows consumers to capture and share itemized purchase decisions
that have, conventionally, only resided on a specific merchant's
database.

[0007]Networks according to the invention may also be limited to a
geographical area. One method of limiting the network to a geographical
area may include analyzing the structure of the network. One embodiment
of the analyzing may utilize the location based services on the mobile
and geographical information systems of a mobile phone. Another method of
limiting the network may include limiting the network based on related
consumption patterns.

[0008]The size of a targeted recommendation network can be selectable. In
one embodiment of the invention, the selection of the size of the target
recommendation network can be varied at least by varying the size of a
friend network with different criteria for friendship. Alternatively, the
varying of the size of the friend network may be implemented independent
of the specific varying of the geographical reach of the network.

[0009]One embodiment of a method according to the invention may include
using a mobile device to purchase an item or a service and then
transmitting the purchase information to a database of purchasing
information regarding the purchase of the item or service. The method may
further include recording the purchasing information at the central
database and transmitting the purchasing information from the central
database to a pre-determined group of users.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0010]The objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent upon
consideration of the following detailed description, taken in conjunction
with the accompanying drawings, in which like reference characters refer
to like parts throughout, and in which:

[0011]FIG. 1 illustrates a schematic diagram of a general-purpose digital
computing environment in which one or more aspects of the present
invention may be implemented.

[0012]FIG. 2 shows an exemplary system architecture of a system according
to the invention;

[0013]FIGS. 3A-3B show graphical user interfaces (GUIs) according to the
invention;

[0015]FIG. 5 shows charts comparing distribution of spending in the
according to the invention; and

[0016]FIG. 6 shows a distribution of individual transactions according to
the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0017]As will be appreciated by one of skill in the art upon reading the
following disclosure, various aspects described herein may be embodied as
a method, a data processing system, or a computer program product.
Accordingly, those aspects may take the form of an entirely hardware
embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment combining
software and hardware aspects.

[0018]Furthermore, such aspects may take the form of a computer program
product stored by one or more computer-readable storage media having
computer-readable program code, or instructions, embodied in or on the
storage media. Any suitable computer readable storage media may be
utilized, including hard disks, CD-ROMs, optical storage devices,
magnetic storage devices, and/or any combination thereof. In addition,
various signals representing data or events as described herein may be
transferred between a source and a destination in the form of
electromagnetic waves traveling through signal-conducting media such as
metal wires, optical fibers, and/or wireless transmission media (e.g.,
air and/or space).

[0019]With respect to the present invention, a database may be provided
that can store the information and make it accessible to software that
analyzes and mines the stored data. Such software may further allow
phones and web applications to access the results of the analysis and the
mining.

[0020]FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a generic computing device 101
(alternatively referred to herein as a "server") that may be used
according to an illustrative embodiment of the invention. The computer
server 101 may have a processor 103 for controlling overall operation of
the server and its associated components, including RAM 105, ROM 107,
input/output module 109, and memory 125.

[0021]Input/output ("I/O") module 109 may include a microphone, keypad,
touch screen, and/or stylus through which a user of device 101 may
provide input, and may also include one or more of a speaker for
providing audio output and a video display device for providing textual,
audiovisual and/or graphical output. Software may be stored within memory
125 and/or storage to provide instructions to processor 103 for enabling
server 101 to perform various functions. For example, memory 125 may
store software used by server 101, such as an operating system 117,
application programs 119, and an associated database 121. Alternatively,
some or all of server 101 computer executable instructions may be
embodied in hardware or firmware (not shown). As described in detail
below, database 121 may provide storage for purchasing information,
purchaser information, general purchasing data and statistics, and any
other suitable information.

[0022]Server 101 may operate in a networked environment supporting
connections to one or more remote computers, such as terminals 141 and
151. Terminals 141 and 151 may be personal computers or servers that
include many or all of the elements described above relative to server
101. The network connections depicted in FIG. 1 include a local area
network (LAN) 125 and a wide area network (WAN) 129, but may also include
other networks. When used in a LAN networking environment, computer 101
is connected to LAN 125 through a network interface or adapter 123. When
used in a WAN networking environment, server 101 may include a modem 127
or other means for establishing communications over WAN 129, such as
Internet 131. It will be appreciated that the network connections shown
are illustrative and other means of establishing a communications link
between the computers may be used. The existence of any of various
well-known protocols such as TCP/IP, Ethernet, FTP, HTTP and the like is
presumed, and the system can be operated in a client-server configuration
to permit a user to retrieve web pages from a web-based server. Any of
various conventional web browsers can be used to display and manipulate
data on web pages.

[0023]Additionally, application program 119, which may be used by server
101, may include computer executable instructions for invoking user
functionality related to communication, such as email, short message
service (SMS), and voice input and speech recognition applications.

[0024]Computing device 101 and/or terminals 141 or 151 may also be mobile
terminals including various other components, such as a battery, speaker,
and antennas (not shown).

[0025]The invention is operational with numerous other general purpose or
special purpose computing system environments or configurations. Examples
of well known computing systems, environments, and/or configurations that
may be suitable for use with the invention include, but are not limited
to, personal computers, server computers, hand-held or laptop devices,
multiprocessor systems, microprocessor-based systems, set top boxes,
programmable consumer electronics, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs),
network PCs, minicomputers, mainframe computers, distributed computing
environments that include any of the above systems or devices, and the
like.

[0026]The invention may be described in the general context of
computer-executable instructions, such as program modules, being executed
by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines, programs,
objects, components, data structures, etc. that perform particular tasks
or implement particular abstract data types. The invention may also be
practiced in distributed computing environments where tasks are performed
by remote processing devices that are linked through a communications
network. In a distributed computing environment, program modules may be
located in both local and remote computer storage media including memory
storage devices.

[0027]Aspects of the invention have been described in terms of
illustrative embodiments thereof. A person having ordinary skill in the
art will appreciate that numerous additional embodiments, modifications,
and variations may exist that remain within the scope and spirit of the
appended claims. For example, one of ordinary skill in the art will
appreciate that the steps illustrated in the figures may be performed in
other than the recited order and that one or more steps illustrated may
be optional. The methods and systems of the above-referenced embodiments
may also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable
instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other
embodiments are disclosed herein as well that can be partially or wholly
implemented on a computer-readable medium, for example, by storing
computer-executable instructions or modules or by utilizing
computer-readable data structures.

[0028]FIGS. 2-6 show illustrative embodiments of systems and methods
according to the invention as well as certain research directed to
portions of the invention.

[0029]Substantially ubiquitous availability of mobile devices that sense
the user's context and interest can be used, in methods and systems
according to the invention, to provide a platform for network consumers
in real time. Such networking can allow users to help each other fulfill
their short term and long term goals. Systems and methods according to
the invention preferably provide a Connected Consumption Network (CCN) to
establish communities of consumers with complementary interests. CCN may
help consumers guide their financial behavior with the help of feedback
from friends and experts in the social network. Individuals may benefit
from being aware of the consumption behavior and the transactions of
members of their respective social networks.

[0030]A mobile device according to the invention may be able to detect
what a user purchases and/or otherwise consumes. Such information deepens
understanding of the user's interests as well as the time-variant quality
of such interests. These interests can then be mapped, according to the
invention, across the social network in order to allow users to leverage
the collective knowledge of other users having complementary interests.
Mapping the interest network, identifying the influencers and the
influenced and tracking the financial transactions of the users (such
transactions occurring either at least partially in response to
system-based recommendations or independent of such recommendations) may
allow systems and methods according to the invention to quantify the
economic activity surrounding a social network.

[0031]The invention preferably provides a platform that can connect
consumers with other consumers of similar interests. Statistical and
machine learning approaches can preferably be used to infer a user's
friendship network and respective physical context.

[0032]Alternatively, or in conjunction therewith, user wish lists and user
purchase logs can be used to establish interest networks through CCN.
Users may also elect (e.g., on an opt-in or opt-out basis) to share the
lists and logs with selected friends and/or the general public via the
mobile device. Combined with the user financial information and
characteristics and parameters of the social network, the CCN may form a
natural idea market for making informed financial decisions.

[0033]A system according to the invention may be designed to capture
itemized transaction details from participants through manual input and
relevant photographic information (such as photographs of brick and
mortar stores) taken with a camera in the mobile device.

[0034]Alternatively itemized transaction details may be automatically
uploaded into a wireless device, either by using the wireless device as
the instrument for the purchase or some other suitable communication.
While merchants may have POS transaction databases of customer's itemized
purchases, these databases are typically specific to those merchants and
are not accessible by the user for any purpose. This limitation may be
overcome according to the invention at least by making CCN
voluntary--i.e., not based off of automatic entry of data in response to
wireless-device based purchases. In certain embodiments, the retailers
and/or merchants may elect to participate in the CCN and provide line
item detail capture to the CCN. Accordingly, the itemized receipt detail
can become part of the CCN either by using the wireless device as to
purchase items and/or having the merchants and retailers consent to
providing their line item receipts to the CCN.

[0035]The wireless connectivity of the CCN may allow it to be connected,
preferably at all times, to search and receive context sensitive
information. By utilizing geographical context from the mobile device at
the time of logging and receiving recommendations, the CCN can
incorporate relevant data relating to the present physical context of the
user.

[0036]The information that is pulled from users on the network and pushed
to users on the network may, in certain embodiments, be guided by the
wish list, purchase logs and/or previous financial transaction behavior.
By logging, displaying and sharing of itemized transactions, the system
may allow the network to microscopically track the "word of mouth"
marketing.

[0037]High frequency shoppers use the web heavily (i.e. Angie's List,
Consumer Report or CNET Reviews) to inform them about the price, features
and reviews of products. Very often these consumers expand this knowledge
by asking their friends for references and information. Such information
seeking can be improved by socially informing each other.

[0038]The system according to the invention may allow identification of
experts with a balanced point of view by tracking a user's utilization of
different merchants and the accounting of actual purchase activity (such
actual purchase activity can be used to inform others of the true
experience with the product and/or service).

[0039]The system according to the invention can be designed as a user
contributory system for purchases so that people can collectively
collaborate to understand the market and form a community around
purchases, items and/or services. System architecture may be composed of
a mobile device front-end, internet back-end, and a reality-mining
module. Such a system may help to understand the users by acting as a
data repository for storing transactions, an administrator for social
network management and a plugin to external services and data sources.

[0040]FIG. 2 shows an exemplary system architecture according to the
invention. The architecture may include wireless devices 202. The devices
preferably act as a front end for data collection. The data collection
may be input manually, received from using the wireless device to conduct
transactions and/or received from external sources such as banks,
merchants, product companies and/or third parties.

[0041]The architecture may also include a reality-mining module that
receives the data from devices 202 or from other sources and consolidates
and/or otherwise transforms the data for use in the community network
212--i.e., for availability to friends, for use in a presentation 208,
and/or for use in a recommendation network 214--i.e., for distribution to
consumers where a friend has visited but the user has not. Furthermore, a
reality-mining engine according to the invention may utilize the
collected information over time to infer user's interests.

[0042]Each of the community network 212, presentation 208, and
recommendation network 214 may be used during shopping 202. Such use may
be implemented on wireless device 202.

[0043]As mentioned above, certain limitations exist with respect to the
current state of transaction information. In conventional systems, only
merchants have itemized list of purchases of customer's POS data.
Merchants are typically protective of this data and cross-referencing may
require close business partnerships. More importantly, customers do not
have any systematic access to this data to evaluate their purchases or
monitor their financial behavior without manually tracking them. Beyond
protecting privacy, the information gives the merchants a competitive
advantage, so there is no willingness to share this information. Thus,
any access to the data through a POS system would require a close
relationship with the merchant.

[0044]Similarly, banks are able to capture all types of transactions
except cash transactions. However, the details of the transactions
typically only capture merchant level information--i.e., information that
identifies only the merchant and the amount of the transaction--and the
itemized list of products and services is not available. While other
applications exist that capture digital receipts, these applications are
not known to be available for large scale implementation.

[0045]To solve the above-stated problems, a system according to the
invention may accept logging of transactions manually. Near Field
Communication ("NFC"), a short-range high frequency wireless
communication technology which enables the exchange of data between
devices over about a 10 centimeter distance and which can be used for
mobile phone payment systems--may also be used to implement systems and
methods according to the invention. Such NFC may be used to load
information on to a consumer's device in order to reduce the burden (of
data entry) on the consumer. Such digital receipt using NFC can enable an
automated and certified log of purchases to avoid forged data or
otherwise unsuitable data. Alternatively, voice recognition software may
be used to allow the user to easily enter transaction data.

[0046]When a user logs a transaction, the item name, tags, price, and
merchant name may be input. Additional annotation may also be used. A
user can also attach a picture by using a camera that may be present in
the wireless device. In certain embodiments of the invention, the
geographical coordinates of the wireless device at POS and time of
purchase may be logged automatically.

[0047]When the user is interested in purchasing an item, the user can
search for it on his wireless device. This user-initiated search may
explore the social network to find other users who have made similar
purchases. Upon detection of such users, the wireless device may present
the findings to the user.

[0048]FIG. 3A shows a GUI 302 including a selected product 304. Included
as well is an expected price range 306 as well as a recommendations
section 308 including individual recommendations 310. Also included are a
tab for items "on friends wishlist" 312, a tab for market statistics 314,
a tab for geographical statistics 316 and a special offers tab 318. Other
tabs across the bottom may include products 330, dashboard 332, search
334, wishlist 336, and more 338.

[0049]FIG. 3B shows a display that may include an interactive dialogue box
320 that may be displayed on the wireless device at point of sale
("POS"). Thus, at POS, one can add comments in the comment field 322, as
well as access information regarding which friends also bought this
product 324 (which may include information concerning any discounts or
rewards that friends may have received). Tab 326 may include warranty
information about the product and recommended accessories 328.

[0050]Individuals who have purchased a certain product often have
performed background research. Such background research may be leveraged,
using systems and methods according to the invention, to inform others
about the product and/or the conditions of purchase. For example, when
users see that friends have purchased similar items, users can message
friends or directly call them. The prior experience of friends and the
social network can be utilized to make more informed purchase decisions.
Alternatively, the background research can be stored in a central
database so a buyer can search the database to obtain any previously
stored information.

[0051]A web service--e.g., a software system designed to support
interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network--according to
the invention may provide capabilities for data collection, social
networking and reality mining. Wireless devices such as mobile phones may
use Representational State transfer ("REST") APIs--i.e., an application
programming interface designed for distributed hypermedia systems such as
the World Wide Web--to store wish lists and purchase lists.

[0052]The user-associated objects contain wish lists and items purchased.
In one embodiment of the invention, most recently purchased items are
given greater weight to better model user's transient interests.

[0053]In some embodiments of the invention that use GUIs 302 and 304,
users are connected with others through a friendship network. Purchased
items can be shared among friends or the public. In certain embodiments
of the invention, a "common sense" database may be utilized to map out
user's interests beyond what they specify through their purchased items
so that public information can be intelligently matched. For example,
each user interest could be mapped with a weight to be prioritized for
constructing social network and filtering recommendations.

[0054]Traditional recommendations may be personalized to the level of an
individual's interests. Such interests may be specified through surveys
and subscriptions during purchase of products or services. However,
individual's interests normally evolve over time, location and context.
For example, when a person has bought an LCD TV, one will typically not
make another big investment in electronics, but, rather, focus more on
the content. Nevertheless, useless catalogs are sent by the merchants
with a wide variety of offerings that are, at least temporarily,
irrelevant to the user. The merchants typically have no situational
awareness of the customer to provide the user with what might be useful
nor do they have information about the user's financial goals, desires
for purchases, or timing of their purchases to help people's future
spending. Instead the merchants just provide a constant stream of
advertising material with the hope that some of the material will appear
before the buyer at an appropriate time.

[0055]In systems and methods according to the invention, purchase
behaviors and financial information may be utilized to filter out de
facto spam from appropriate recommendations. A central database in such a
system may be configured to filter the recommendations based on the
frequency of purchase, average size of purchase, average spending in a
month and the usual categories of spending. For example, if one purchases
childcare products only once a month, recommendations can be set to be
provided to the user once a month. Recommendations can be further tuned
to be sent at least three weeks, or some other appropriate time,
following the last purchase of childcare products. If one has an average
childcare expenditure of $1000 a month, any purchase recommendations that
exceed this budget may be considered spam and may be disregarded by the
system.

[0056]In certain embodiments of the invention, the level of aggressiveness
by which recommendations are treated may be selectable. For example, a
user may elect to disregard any recommendations that either exceed a
budget or are not aligned with the user's interests. Alternatively, the
level of aggressiveness with respect to treatment of recommendations may
be system-set.

[0057]In certain embodiments of the invention, recommendations (or other
communications to friends) may include a buy-it-now feature. For example,
one can send a recommendation to a friend that includes a link to a
web-page whereby the friend can, if so desired, click on the link and
purchase the item immediately from the web-based merchant specified in
the link. As such, short-lived offers such as, for examples, sales on
airline tickets, can easily and efficiently be communicated among a
selected group of consumers. Further, the ability to take advantage of
the short-lived offers is improved as well.

[0058]Various services can be implemented in a CCN according to the
invention. Such services can be beneficial for the community of
consumers. For example, the users can receive different levels of
aggregate data regarding consumption of different products in different
geographical areas. Alternatively, users can receive aggregate data
regarding consumption under demographic conditions. Such different levels
of aggregate data may generate real time consumer reports and can be used
to formulate a relatively broad consumption index.

[0059]In a business setting, CCN may provide data that can be utilized for
merchants and product companies to access and target user wishlists and
to further provide a contextual marketing channel.

[0060]A CCN according to the invention may also provide opportunities for
a reverse auction so that consumers may save time in their product
search. Such a reverse auction may be implemented such that the user
enters a price and then the CCN distributes the price, or otherwise
identifies the price, to merchants and determines whether merchants can
meet the user's offered price.

[0061]Financial service providers may also be incentivized to participate
in this system. Their participation may extend to handling transactions
recorded and/or performed via the CCN and providing contextual financial
offers in a timely manner. The financial service providers may provide
offers using the CCN at critical times such as when a user expresses
interest in purchasing an item, when the user is at the point of sale,
and/or when the user engages in financial transactions with other users.
At such critical times, the financial service provider can be an
authority for the user legitimacy. Value added service to merchants can
be provided for premium fees or through separate payment network.

[0062]Often people purchase products and services without much awareness
of their own spending habits or consideration of the future impacts of
the purchase. Current budgeting tools are limited in giving real time
feedback when one is considering making a purchase. Research in retail
stores indicate that 20% to 60% of purchases occur due to impulsive
purchases. A CCN according to the invention may allow spending to be
tracked, categorized and then sorted so that people can view, preferably
on the mobile device, their consumption summary in real time. With the
help of the network according to the invention, one can also receive
information regarding how one compares in different spending categories
(i.e. my coffee spending, travel spending) with others in similar
financial contexts.

[0063]The assumption of CCN is that participants contribute, either
manually or automatically, and share purchasing records at an itemized
level. For the following studies, anonymized data of three months of
credit card and debit card transactions have been mined. Though detailed
information about purchased products or services is not available, the
sample data used for the research does enhance the value to the network
of each individual's transaction history.

[0064]Two hundred credit card users between ages 20 and 50 were randomly
selected from a specific metropolitan statistical area. Though item level
information was not obtained, merchant names and shopping categories were
available for each transaction. Twenty categories of credit/debit card
transactions were studied. These categories include `Food Stores`,
`Restaurants/Bars`, `Clothing Stores`, `Electronic Alliances`, etc. These
20 categories represent common shopping behaviors. Categories like `Cash
advance`, `Payment`, `Refund` were discarded in the following analysis.

[0065]The following analysis assumes that each individual's purchasing
behavior or `consumption pattern` can be determined and mined from the
merchants he or she visited in the past. As a simpler model, each
customer's consumption pattern can be approximated by a length-20 vector
where each element represents the amount of money he spends in that
category. The relative distribution and absolute amount of spending in
different categories can well reveal a customer's interests, habits, and
living styles. The following analysis illustrates: 1) the consumption
report obtainable from the aggregated information in the large scale
network to which he or she is connected and 2) the amount of relevant
recommendation information and other shared information consumers can
receive from their friends network.

[0066]First, a friendship network was generated by randomly clustering the
200 customers into different groups. Each group included between 2 and 9
members. Every pair of members within the same group were connected as
friends. Then, weak links were drawn between two customers in different
groups. The number of weak links was uniformly distributed between 0 and
100. `Mutual Information` is defined as the number of common merchants
that a customer and his/her friends have visited, implying that they have
common interests and knowledge about these merchants. `Recommendations`
can be defined for the purpose of this application as the number of
merchants that at least one friend has visited, but that the user has
not.

[0067]FIGS. 4A and 4B show charts according to the invention which display
mutual information (MI) and recommendations (RC) that customers
theoretically would have received from their respective social networks.
The charts include number of friends as the x-axis and mutual information
as the y-axis. The first degree line corresponds to friends of the user.
It can be seen from these results that there is a large potential to
explore the information hidden inside the social network.

[0068]As can be seen from the results, mutual information and
recommendations grow substantially linearly with the number of friends
each individual has. Each customer can potentially receive approximately
forty-five recommendations over a period of three months from each
friend.

[0069]If the second degree social network opinions--i.e. friends'
friends--are considered, the amount of information gets significantly
amplified, as well as the privacy and spam concerns. It can potentially
annoy individuals when hundreds of recommendations are received each
month. Accordingly, a user can filter out information according to his or
her own interests and preferences. In FIG. 4A-4B, the MI and RC are
filtered by the top 5 spending categories, as shown by the curves at the
bottom of FIGS. 4A and 4B. The filtering effectively reduces the amount
of information received, but potentially increases the quality or value
of the information.

[0070]FIG. 5 displays exemplary user interfaces 502-508. A customer can
utilize at least two of interfaces 502-508 to compare his own spending in
each category and the average amount other consumers spend in the same
geographical location and/or age group or other suitable filtering
parameter. The two subgraphs at the top 502 and 504 represent the
shopping patterns for two major metropolitan areas in the US. The two
subgraphs at the bottom 506 and 508 represent two customers living in the
second metropolitan area. Such an interface allows a customer to receive
feedback on his/her relative consumption level and reflect his or her
budgeting and financial planning. Alternatively, such an interface allows
a customer to receive feedback on the relative consumption level of his
geographical location as compared to another geographic location.

[0071]FIG. 6 shows an exemplary user scenario 602 when a customer receives
multiple recommendations on restaurants from his/her friends.
Specifically, scenario 602 illustrates the distribution of individual
transactions in five different restaurants. Plus signs ("+") 604
represent the transaction amount for individual transactions. Box 606
represents a schematic diagram showing the mean transaction amount for
each restaurant relative to the range of transactions.

[0072]In this case, scenario 602 was generated from Mobile Service
Architecture-2 ("MSA-2"). MSA-2 is a specification that defines a
standard set of application functionality for mobile devices. Scenario
602 included over 500 transactions per restaurant. The x-axis shows the
five different restaurants and the y-axis shows the amounts spent on the
respective transactions.

[0073]Depending on the occasion, a user can preferably select between
these options based on the expected spending. Similarly in CCN, customers
can share their restaurant experiences and allow users to make a choice
based on his/her own preferences and financial situation.

[0074]The previous results show that systems and methods according to the
invention are well suited to enhance aspects of mobile commerce.

[0075]Mobile shopping services in Japan generated $1.84 billion in 2004,
which represented about 8% of all on-line sales of physical products in
Japan that year. 15% of the on-line sales were in fashion-related
products. Push mail and discount coupons integrated with merchants and
other broadcast media (radio, TV) were the driving business models.
Expanding on such potential, systems and methods according to the
invention may preferably contribute to building a context-aware,
socially-aware, finance-aware mobile shopping experience.

[0076]With mobile communication becoming pervasive, different types of
digital payment and digital receipt systems are being implemented in
mobile computing environments. The main focus of the digital payment and
digital receipt systems is on making current payment system more
efficient by using mobile devices.

[0077]Systems and methods according to the invention preferably present a
holistic framework to the world of digital payment and digital receipt
systems. CCN preferably improves mobile transactions so that they can
become a relational experience by embedding social network and
personalization around the mobile shopping experience. When friends are
involved in transactions, research has shown that the transaction becomes
relational where future consequences are taken into account during
transactions. CCN presents opportunities for making shopping experience
more relational.

[0078]The same mobile phones that detect user's financial transactions in
digital payment and digital receipt systems are able to detect and,
preferably, forecast user's long term and transient interests. The long
term interests can be aggregated and communicated to the user at periodic
intervals instead of alerting the user continuously. The transient
interests can be used opportunistically when users are geographically in
closer proximity to a store and in a timely manner when they have higher
probability of purchase during weekend or evening hours. It would be at
best inefficient to alert the user with furniture store sales when the
user is commuting to their work.

[0079]Sharing financial transactions may be a very sensitive issue. One
aspect of CCN that prevents unwanted disclosure of financial information
is a mechanism by which users can control which transaction items to
share (opt-in). Those that are closed may only used for generating
aggregate information.

[0080]There is uncertainty about whether the consumers are willing to
accept mobile advertisements on their phones at least because of spam and
unsolicited communications. The small screens also limit the
effectiveness of the advertisement. However, market research shows that
consumers are willing to accept advertising if the advertising directly
benefits them through coupons that can be used in brick and mortar
stores. Research of SMS campaigns in Europe have shown that people like
the advertisements they receive from trusted sources. Studies also show
that 23% of people are willing to forward the advertisements to their
friends. In other research surveys, 65% wanted personalized
advertisements and 45% wanted location specific advertisements. All of
these studies indicate that a design around social and physical context
may be important for the adoption of recommendations through CCN.

[0081]The simulations described herein show how much more "information
aware" consumers can be when they are socially networked through a
CCN-like system. By building a system of actual transactions and
establishing connections to share purchasing experiences among friends
and social network, the quality of information and recommendations can be
increased. Furthermore, true expert and/or experienced consumers can be
identified from the purchases they have made. Thus, less time is wasted
on preparing and reviewing random reviews. CCN is an attempt to bring
such enhanced social shopping experience to the mobile context while
helping consumers to help each other for smarter spending.

[0082]Thus, systems and methods for implementing a consumption network
have been provided. Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that the
present invention can be practiced by other than the described
embodiments, which are presented for purposes of illustration rather than
of limitation, and that the present invention is limited only by the
claims that follow.